Do you remember when Cuba Gooding Jr. won an academy award? Those were good times, whatever happened to those? Something went very wrong in Cuba Gooding Jr.’s career, and its left him out of The Academy’s eye, and instead plastered all over DVD shelves.
Gooding Jr. is cast as investigative journalist Lewis Hicks, soon to find himself the prime suspect in a series of murders. Ticking Clock takes a turn for the clichéd from the get go. There’s the public argument with a girlfriend moments before she is murdered, the best friend a cop who will assist with the investigation under the radar, and lest we forget the cop in charge of investigating the murders with a personal vendetta against Gooding Jr.’s journalist.
Just when you’re getting used to a straight-to-DVD thriller, the film goes ahead and takes a complete U-Turn and switches genre on you, bringing in a sci-fi element. To be fair, mind, the film is better for it. The twist ending is a pretty interesting one, its just its execution that is the problem. It becomes pretty awesome what direction the film is going in a good 30 minutes before the characters decide to realise what’s going on. The execution of what should have been an interesting twist instead feels rather simplistic and anti-climatic.
Despite the plot being littered with holes, small screen director Ernie Barbarash manages to sustain sufficient suspension of disbelief to keep a hold of your attention. The film, surprisingly, has quite a healthy dose of heady suspense throughout.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Its all been done before, and for the most part its all been done better. Although, considering it is low budget and very clichéd, it’s still quite watchable. Performances are quite laughable at times, and the twist ending is poorly executed, but it certainly wont be the worst film you see all year.
